EAST MEETS WEST: LEON GALLERY CROWDFUNDS TO BRING A PERSIAN-AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE TO THE BIENNIAL CONVERSATION

A conversation with Persian-American Safa Samiezadé-Yazd — a local artist who’s worked on a national level for Aslan Media and Boomgen Studios — first opened Eric Dallimore’s eyes to the unique position of her culture-straddling compatriots in America: Iranian-American artists struggle not only with their mixed cultural identity, but also with the question of whether that’s a theme they should pursue in their work. Dallimore definitely encouraged the latter, and he and Eric Nord, his co-director at Leon Gallery, have teamed up with Samiezadé-Yazd to curate Continental Divide: East of L.A. / West of Tehran, a show they hope to stage at the gallery beginning July 18 — a date that happens to coincide with the 2015 Biennial of the Americas.